Vanderbilt University Department of  Religious Studies, College of Arts and Science

REQUIREMENTS:

• (10%) Active participation in discussion: including expressing the differences between your contextual interpretation of a given biblical book and that of the GBC (these differences should be written down before class and in front of you in class - as everyone should be ready to express them in the discussion) and that of the presenter. (see Appendix # 2 to this syllabus: Preparing for each class)
• Quizzes: 6 x 5% quizzes on readings = 30% (there will be 7 quizzes; lowest grade dropped; no make up quiz)
• Seminar Presentations (with 2 page handouts sent to instructors & Respondent/Scribes by Monday prior to class) or role as Respondent/Scribe (with reports due by Friday after class): 2 x 10% = 20%
• Paper Proposal = Take Home Midterm = 10 % due Wednesday Feb 27
• A paper prepared over the second part of the semester (including oral presentation with hand-out of a part of your paper): 30 % Final paper due Monday, April 28 at 9:00am
• Paper Proposal & Paper Topic: (TBA)
• Grades: A = Excellent, exceptional = correctly addressing all the questions of the topic, and demonstrating special creativity and insightfulness in analysis; B = Good and solid. = correctly addressing all the questions of the topic, but without special creativity or insightfulness; C = Fairly Good = most questions of the topic are addressed correctly, but some questions of the topic have not been addressed correctly or have not been addressed; D = Poor = Many questions are addressed incorrectly, or not addressed at all.

HONOR CODE: 

Throughout the semester, you are under the Honor Code of Vanderbilt University. All your reports and your paper should represent YOUR OWN work, yet they should benefit from the work of others members of the class [so as you take notes, make sure you identify who said what in class]. Identify in notes your sources (including insights from books and articles, from lectures, from presentations and remarks during discussion from other students, and from the Web), so as to avoid plagiarism. Sign your work as a pledge of compliance with the Honor Code (i.e., you wrote it without receiving aid from (or giving aid to) any other person, except as specified above and in class).